TITLE: “THE RELATIONSHIP OF SNACKING PATTERNS AND BODY MASS INDEX AMONG 3rd YEAR TO 4th YEAR PT STUDENTS OF DLS-HSI”

CHAPTER 1

BACKGROUND The prevalence of obesity is still high in developed and developing countries. Presently worldwide, it is estimated that more than one billion adults are overweight and at least 300 million adults are clinically obese (World Health Organization, 2010). According Boyle, M.A et.al, the World health Organization (WHO) report Obesity – Preventing and managing the Global Epidemic first highlighted obesity as a worldwide problem that now affect the most countries. More recently, WHO has declared overweight one of the top ten health risk in the world, Countries in Asia, Middle East and Latin America are already experiencing a double burden of undernutrition and nutritional disease, such as diabetes and heart disease, caused by increasing rates of obesity as well as poverty. Obesity of the students is recognized as a medical problem of the students. In the Philippines the nationwide nutrition survey conducted by the Food and Nutrition Research Institute of the Department of Science and Technology (FNRI-DOST) in 1993 showed that 14 percent of Filipinos 20 years old and above are overweight, while 2.6 percent are obese. Translated in absolute figures, there are 5.7 million Filipino adults who were either overweight or obese in 1993, an increase of 63 percent or 2.2 million compared to 3.5 million in 1987, the FNRI survey further noted. In 1998, using the non-adjusted Body Mass Index guidelines for Asians, the WHO Global Database on Body Mass Index reports overweight and obesity in the Philippines at 23.5%, with the female adults having higher obesity...